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Blazing path out of town

Fran Blinebury of the Houston Chronicle commenting on the Rockets’ trade of Scottie Pippen to the Portland Trail Blazers:

“Pippen came to Houston to prove he could stand without (Michael) Jordan. And now he is slithering out like a 6-7 worm, pointing fingers at Charles Barkley, the only member of the Rockets’ organization who rushed to his defense during an unfulfilling season.

“For $14 million last season, the Rockets got themselves a player, who averaged 14.5 points, shot 43.2 percent from the field and led the NBA in pouts.”

Holding pattern

Joe Posnanski of the Kansas City Star on the Chiefs getting 13 holding penalties in a 21-14 loss to San Diego:

“The Flying Wallendas didn’t hold each other that much. There are couples celebrating their 50th wedding anniversaries who have not had that much snuggle time. The guy who invented the Heimlich maneuver… . OK, the point is that’s a lot of holding penalties.”

And this from Chiefs coach Gunther Cunningham: `I’m going to watch some film now. After that, who knows what I might say. Can you lend me $10,000?”

Why bother

Tex Cobb, former heavyweight boxer, won a judgment in a libel suit after Sports Illustrated reported he helped fix a fight against Sonny Barch, then shared cocaine with the loser.

Said Michael Ventre of MSNBC: “I would be wary of any story that suggests somebody would bother to fix a Cobb-Barch fight. Gamblers have standards too, you know.”

Sound advice

Bernie Lincicome in the Chicago Tribune: `Samuel Ryder, the original patron of the Ryder Cup, was buried with his 5-iron, the only sensible thing to do with any golf club, really.”

Must be true love

Hubert Mizell of the St. Petersburg (Fla.) Times writes that Steffi Graf has “fallen” for Andre Agassi:

“He would not have been my first choice for Steffi’s mate. Not that she’s hired me as romance consultant. I was thinking Graf might match up with somebody less famous, devoid of high ego and visibility, and with better hair.”

One of his what?

From The New York Times: “But such narrow-mindedness is common to the PGA Tour, which went to court to bar Casey Martin from using a cart, despite clear evidence of a degenerative circulatory disease in one of his right legs.”

The last word …

“Tutors may have violated the standard of the University of Tennessee scholar athlete. A player’s paper should be written with his own crayon.”

- Comedy writer Alan Ray